Battlestar Farscape Version 2
by Mackon
Summary: The worn down world of new Battlestar gets a hero just as real to life but who still has some energy in him. Fleshed out in places and given a vigorous polish!
1. Chapter 1

**Battlestar Farscape **

By Mackon

**Chapter 1**

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Do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica not profit writing.

All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica:Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.

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--ooo000ooo--

_Battlestar Galactica, Port Landing Pod._

"Landing Pods Secure commencing countdown to Jump!" The P.A. sounded through out the hangar deck.

"5"

Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol stared at the Viper being lowered on the descending lift.

"4"

It was a MK-V and had been though hell but someone with a lot of skill had rebuilt it. The Chiefs experienced eyes followed the lines of the near invisible repairs.

"3"

The nose cone had a shiny new slash running up along the fuselage showing where a Cylon round had scraped by marking but not penetrating the Viper's hull.

"2"

The canopy was up, the cockpit empty. So the pilot must have already got out. Manually popping the release as soon as the lock to the landing track sealed and the lift shaft had pressurized. A very unsafe habit that Chief Tyrol had been trying to stop his pilots from indulging in since fraking 'Starbuck' had done it the first time and started the trend.

"1"

Galen had never seen the Viper before in his life.

"Jump"

Which was impossible, as he knew every inch, of every bird on the Galactica.

--ooo000ooo--

_C.I.C., Battlestar Galactica._

Commander William Adama stood on the observation deck overlooking C.I.C. doing his job, which at the moment he thought ruefully was standing here being seen and being seen to be calm. While Colonel Saul Tigh and Tactical Officer Lt. Felix Gaeta sweated over the Dradis count of civilian ships in the control pit below him. He heard a relived Gaeta finish the count at 56 and Tigh turned to face him.

"All our chicks are accounted for Commander." Adama gave his long time friend a nod and raked his eyes over the command staff.

"Good job people stand down from condition one. We will remain on Condition Two for the next forty minutes until we are sure they did not follow us. Get me damage and casualty reports and have the civilian captains check there jump drives. Colonel you have the bridge. I will be in my office."

As Adama turned and made his way to his office he saw Petty Officer Second class Anastasia Dualla answer the internal COM's hand piece, after a second listening she looked around briefly then gestured to Tigh. Adama stepped into his office and closed the hatch.

Might as well get off my feet for a few seconds, he thought, Dee had looked worried and William knew that what ever it was would soon land on his desk but despite that he could not help but be pleased. As little as a month ago Dee would have, at the very least looked at her Commander or maybe Lt. Gaeta, before following the chain of command and reporting what ever the problem was to Tigh. But the crew had a lot more faith in the XO now and she had not hesitated. The Battlestar Commander sat down behind his cluttered desk and slipped on his glasses hopefully he could get some work done before it hit the fan.

Saul Tigh bit back a groan when Dualla caught his eye and held out a hand set, offering it to him.

"Colonel I have Chief Tyrol for you. He say's its urgent." These things were never good news and straight after a jump. Off the top of his head he could think of a dozen catastrophes that would need his attention.

"This is the XO, talk to me Chief."

--ooo000ooo--

_Battlestar Galactica, Port Landing Pod._

"Move it into one of the Gamma flight bays, Gods know we have enough room, park a trolley in front of it and don't talk to anyone about this Cally." Saul could hear Tyrol talking, obviously not to him, and his temper never the best took a turn for the worse.

"Chief!" Colonel Tigh barked.

"Sorry Colonel, I'm just getting it out of sight." Tyrol's voice was slightly drowned out by the background noises of a busy workplace, as he obviously held the radio away from his mouth to talk to someone else.

"Getting what!?" Tigh cut himself off and made an effort to rein his temper in.

He knew Chief Tyrol was a good soldier and would have a good reason for messing around like this, he'd better anyway. Calmer now, he asked in a steady voice. "What's going on Chief?"

"Sir this morning we had seven mark five Vipers in service, now we have eight. As far as I can tell it just followed our bird's home and landed. No unit marks, badges or any other identifiers I can find and with that suicide bomber we had a while back I didn't want to call a ship wide intruder alert. Who knows how he would react."

--ooo000ooo--

_Commander's office, Battlestar Galactica._

"Enter"

Saul Tigh slipped into the room closing the Hatch again behind him Adama noticed. Not a good sign.

"We have a problem Will. Chief Tyrol reports that we got one more Viper back than we sent out. I have already spoken to Sergeant Hadrian to quietly double up guard posts and patrols. Dee is going though the Dradis logs trying to find out where it came from."

Adama winced they had been infiltrated before, but to have the gall to just fly in.

Despite having over 2500 crew onboard people were still used to seeing the same faces in the same areas and got to know them at least by sight. Slowly with careful questions from the deck staff and marines that were already in the know, a picture formed of a young brown haired man wearing a flight suit, that looked a little odd to people. Enough to remember, but not really enough to give him a second glance. He had last been seen near the pilots ready room heading in the direction of the crew quarters.

But there the trail ended a search of quarters turned up nothing; reluctantly the command staff re-introduced checkpoints though out the ship. But in the 10 hours since the jump no new leads had been found.

--ooo000ooo--

_Colonel Saul Tigh's Cabin_

Tigh closed the hatch and flicked on his cabin's lamp undoing the stiff collar on his uniform as he stepped into his home for the last three years.

"Don't move Colonel."

"What the hell!" Tigh spun toward the voice and found himself looking down the barrel of a service pistol. Saul Tigh was an old soldier, had been through the horrors of the first Cylon war and liked to think he had seen a few things. With the beating everybody had taken since the holocaust it amazed him that this, the sight of a kid, could not be more than 17 years old, in a Colonial cadet's uniform holding a gun on him in his own quarters would've totally knocked him off balance.

He tried to get himself moving but his body would just not react.

"Colonel." The distinctive click of the hammer being cocked back snapped Saul out of his shock.

"Sir on the kitchen counter is a grey cylinder, pick it up!" Tigh realised the boy had been speaking while he had been wool-gathering and he had not answered, making the kid with the gun repeat himself.

"What is this about Cadet, where did you come from?" Looking around he saw the cylinder sitting on his kitchen counter in some kind of cradle with a lead running off to the wall power socket.

"Colonel I will place myself under your command as soon as you pick up the cylinder and press the button on it. If you do not follow my instructions I will shoot you and move on to the next in line of command. My orders are very clear and I will follow them!"

Saul's mind raced as he walked slowly over to his cabin's small kitchen area, the damn thing looked like a grenade, an old one from the beginning of the war. Replaced before he ever joined up hell, before he had been born, but still there had been some around in his cadet days. But the kid said he would place himself under Saul's command as soon as he finished with it and if he wanted to kill the Colonel? Why not just shoot him. What the hell was going on!

Tigh picked the grey cylinder out of its cradle, noting the metal contacts, confirming his first thought that the cradle was a charging unit. Looking at the kid all Tigh could see was determination, maybe a little nervousness. The grenade? Whatever it was offered no clues as to its purpose, a plastic tube with a serial number that meant nothing to Tigh running down the side, sealed both ends with slightly darker grey plastic caps the bottom with two metal plates to fit the charger. The top with a big red button sticking out of it 8" long 3" across. Saul decided he was not getting anywhere just staring at it and with an unvoiced curse he pressed the button.

CLICK! That was it, just a loud mechanical sounding click and the red light in the button went out. He felt a slight shock through his hand and something moving inside the thing. Nothing else happened.

"What the hell is this, who are you and what in Hades are you doing waving a gun around in my cabin." Tigh bellowed. The Cadet was already going through the motions to safely holster his side arm. He finished clipping down the flap on his holster, came to attention then saluted.

"Sir, Lieutenant Junior Grade Mark Usen, sir my orders were to get on board and without making my presence known to possible enemy agents and making sure that you yourself were not an enemy agent and report to the Galactica's XO for debriefing."

Saul did not react well to surprises and this situation was bizarre. But looking at the cadet in front of him rigidly standing at attention; eyes straight ahead. He was starting to get some idea of what was going on and at least on some level, was a very junior officer reporting something red hot! To a new commanding officer He was on familiar ground. He decided to just follow his gut instincts.

But first.

"Give me your side arm Lieutenant." Saul held out his hand and was only mildly surprised when the gun was instantly handed over he glanced at it briefly, a standard issue C.D.F pistol. Saul settled down on one of the kitchen stools placing the gun on the counter close at hand.

"What ship are you off of."

"The Xiphos(1) Sir, a Calypso class frigate." Tigh new little about the Calypso class as they were relatively new, having only been introduced to the fleet two years ago. There had not been many of them in service by the time of the Cylon attack. Most of their scout/support duties still carried out by the older Nautilus class. He could not remember seeing one. But Captain Davis Carey had told him that his ship Colonial Heavy 798, now renamed Colonial One, was a civilian variant on the Calypso hull. All of that ran through the Colonels mind in a spilt second. From what little he knew Calypsos could launch Vipers, unlike the Nautilus class they mounted a single fighter catapult on either broadside.

"Did you come aboard the Galactica on that mark five Viper?" Tigh asked.

"Yes Sir." The kid looked damn proud of himself and Saul did not blame him as the Old man had said earlier the gall it would take to just wonder into a battle and land on a hostile Battlestar. It was not something Tigh would have liked to do.

"What's this thing? and how does it prove I am not a Cylon." He held up the damn grenade looking thing. That was one of the important bits of info and Saul would really like to know what it had done to him.

"Sir I am not quite sure how it works I think only the Commander understood all the notes on it. But it's a Ragnar effect grenade and if you had been a Cylon, well I have seen what it did to one of the human copy types, he went into convulsions and died with in a few minutes Sir." Saul looked down at what he had in his hands, a Cylon detector the special project that that quack Balter had been messing around with since the holocaust and still hadn't got right. That is, if he was to believe all this, something he was still debating with himself about.

"Who's your Captain and is the Xiphos on her own." Saul stood up and marched over to his sleeping area this was getting interesting and it was time to get Bill in on it. Beside the head of his bed was his cabins COM's handset which he then picked it up.

"Captain Carter is Xiphos's CO, Captain 'Greenbean' Carter and we are on detached duty from the fleet." The word "fleet". that caught Tigh's attention but he did not want to go into details until Adama could get here.

"I knew a Greenbean Carter, but how did he make it off of Picon." The man had been on a ship with him during the war. Not close, but survivors tended to keep track of each other.

Tigh hit the operator button and spoke into the hand piece.

"This is Colonel Tigh put me though to the Commander, immediately." Saul ordered, most of his attention still on his 'guest'.

"He was at the Artemis valley Academy same as me, we were evacuated by the Commander the day of the holocaust." Mark Usen continued.

Tigh heard the handset on the other end of the connection passed to the Adama and spoke quickly. "Bill this is Saul, would you come down to my cabin now you need to see this. Clear skies all the way." With that Tigh hung up, he did not want to try and explain this over the COM's.

During his message to Bill Adama, Tigh had kept his eyes on Lieutenant Usen and noted that the cadet was getting more nervous and could guess what was upsetting the kid. He strode past the stiff figure still at attention and placed the Ragnar effect grenade back in its charger.

"How long does this thing take to recharge." Saul knew the boy would not want to talk to anyone who had not been tested.

"10 minutes sir!" Yes the kid was definitely nervous, but he had put himself in Tigh's hands and Saul did not like having guns pointed at him. Even if he did understand and even approve of the reasons why the kid had been waving a gun in his face.

"Might be done by the time the Commander gets here, at ease son take a seat. Tell me about the commander of this fleet who managed to get you off of Picon."

Lieutenant Usen brightened as he took a seat in the lounge area and Saul got the strong impression that this was one of his favourite topics.

"Commander Crichton sir, Commander John Crichton."

--ooo000ooo--

A/N

Thanks much to Tweeky and the members at Spacebattles dot Com for much beta work.

(1) Xiphos ancient Greek infantry sword


	2. Chapter 2

**Battlestar Farscape**

By Mackon

**Chapter 2**

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I do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica not making a profit writing this.

All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica: Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.

Thanks to andrewjameswilliams for pointing out a rather silly error on my part.

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--ooo000ooo--

_Alpha 2 Patrol Group, Nike System._

Captain Susan 'Char' Usen led her patrol of three Vipers and one Raptor around the perimeter of the Fleet.

Captain! The eighteen-year-old wondered at it, even as most of her attention was focused squarely on the job at hand, the thought still had the power to surprise her. Three months ago she and most of her fellow pilots had been cadets together on Picon, now she was one of the Fleets senior officers. Not one of the top decision-makers thank the Gods, they had the Commander and the other top brass for that, but still a hell of a jump. A beep from the flight computer shook the young officer from her wool-gathering and had her checking the Viper's instruments.

"Okay people Waypoint in 30 seconds. I want a smooth course change stay in formation and watch the clearance between you and your wing mates." The order came as naturally as breathing after the number of these patrols Susan had run.

Susan checked her own Heads up Display (HUD) it would not be funny if she was the one to mess up. On her Vipers HUD the mission clock counted down when it reached zero she eased the control stick though the well-practiced motions to bring her Viper onto its new heading. Quickly checking the Dradis, Susan saw the rest of Alpha 2 follow her though the manoeuvre the three Vipers' in an arrowhead formation one trailing a hundred yards off either side of her viper with the Raptor tucked into the centre of the formation.

"Well Alpha 2 that's our excitement for the next 30 minutes, stay sharp; remember this is a patrol not a cruise."

The four C.D.F. war-craft flew through space giving Susan a panoramic view of the Fleet. In the distance the reassuring form of the Battlestar _Medusa_ bracketed on each side by her escorts the Battle Cruisers _Hyperion_ and _Helios_. The _Hyperion_ was almost unrecognizable covered in gantries and with the repair ship parked right on its hull its arms extended to cover the top decks where she had taken the most damage. Then there was the Nike Anchorage where she and the rest of the people rescued from Picon had been squeezed into when the troop carriers had off loaded them to go back for more. Three of the four troop carriers were still docked at the small Anchorage. The fourth had been lost when they had gone back one time too many, ripped apart by a Cylon Basestar's missiles as it tried to take off from Picon, killing all 2700 refugees crammed onboard. Barely visible from this distance were the five Nautilus class Frigates stationed around the Anchorage, the 276 foot long ships appearing as oddly shaped dots at this range. On this side of the Fleet were the civilian ships that had joined up with them as they ran and dwarfing them all was the brooding presence of the _Hades_.

"Silver Eyes' to 'Char' we are picking up a power spike bearing 260 degrees." The Raptors had much more powerful sensors than her Viper so Susan did not bother checking her own instruments. Automatically she looked to her left at the ranks of two dozen odd civilian ships they were flying parallel too on this leg of the patrol route.

"Pin it down Silver Eyes' Alpha 2 we are coming about 250 degrees off our currant heading. In 3 2 1 go." 'Char' Usen rolled her Viper and came back on the new heading, almost without thinking about it as she changed frequencies.

"This is lead Alpha 2 to Medusa repeat this is lead, patrol group Alpha 2 come in Medusa."

--ooo000ooo--

_C.I.C, Battlestar Medusa, Nike System._

"Medusa here Captain, we're receiving you." said Petty Officer Second class Chris Mycen _Medusa's_ communications officer on watch.

"Alpha 2 is diverting to investigate an energy spike detected in the vicinity of the civilian squadron our Raptor is tracking down which ship it came from now."

"Confirmed Captain have your Raptor relay its' sensor readings to CIC." Chris turned to report to Major Dies, but the _Medusa's_ XO waved him back.

"I heard petty officer, get the Alert Vipers out there to cover for Alpha 2, Lieutenant Perry what do we have on the civilian squadron."

Lieutenant Koine Perry the operations officer was already at the Dradis computer interface poring over the records from the ranks of stood down civilian ships that made up the squadron.

"The station keeping crew for one of the Planet Taxi's, the Sterling, switched out an hour ago and they reported to the Leading Star that the change over was complete with no problems at 2300; that was 54 minutes ago with no activity since then." _The Leading Star _was a luxury cruiser from the Star Line shipping consortium, the Fleet used it as home base and living quarters for the crews that kept the civilian squadron in service for when they would be needed again.

Major Hal Dies looked over the command pit and for a second wondered what he was doing here; he had never wanted a line command. He had been an administration coordinator with Colonial Fleet Science division before John Crichton had dragged him and a few others off of a crumbling Fleet Command, as the giant Anchorage was nuked to scrap over Picon. Hal shook the wave of doubt off, as he always did; he felt them less and less nowadays. He had been thrust into command positions since the first day after the holocaust, as one of the few surviving experienced officers and he knew in the last months he had earned the respect of his crew.

"Get the Sterling on the barker, just do a routine check; sound them out petty officer" he told Petty Officer Mycen.

"Aye, Sir." Chris was already changing frequencies as he answered.

Hal watched him work for a second, planning, then looked to the other rating at the communication desk Specialist Michele Owens.

"Misty get me Colonel Torins on the Hades." Hal ordered.

"Aye, Sir." The young Libran girl was barely 15; she had just started at the Artemis Academy when the worlds had ended.

"We are getting telemetry from Alpha two's Raptor they picked up a second energy spike and have confirmed the origin, it's the Sterling." Lieutenant Perry reported.

Dies took the COM's hand piece the specialist held out to him; Colonel Paula Torins was the XO of the _Hades_. The massive Hades class Cylon Basestar was a relic of the first Cylon war, which the survivors were refitting for their own use as fast as they could. It was where most of the Fleets civilians now lived and worked.

Colonel Torins was also the Fleets senior marine.

"Paula its Hal, we have something brewing out in the civy squadron. I would like to request your stand by drop-ship be readied for possible boarding action." He could send a troop of _Medusa's_ own marines in Raptors but a drop-ship could carry more bodies and was built for hostile landings, unlike the more all purpose Raptors.

"Sir the Warbook has a 73 percent match on the energy spike as an attempt to cold start an old pre war fusion reactor."

"Damn" The civilian ships that were no longer needed for living quarters. Now that the life support on the _Hades_ could handle the 20,000 odd refugees plus the crew and the marines stationed there. They were powered for life support and station keeping only. With most of their reactors and energizers disabled, jump keys and crucial parts under guard in a big safe on the _Leading Star_.

"Looks like we have some runners Paula I will have our telemetry relayed over." Major Dies handed the hand set back to Specialist Owens.

"Sir the Sterling's crew say everything's fine and thanks for asking." Petty Officer Mycen reported "They sound pretty exited about it too." The native of Aquaria added wryly.

"Lieutenant Perry Alpha 2 is authorized to go live on weapons, they are to use what ever methods they have too, to stop our position being revealed to the enemy. P.O. let me talk to Commander Sun."

--ooo000ooo--

_Commander Aeryn Sun's Cabin, Battlestar Medusa, Nike System._

Aeryn jerked away from shrill ringing of the COM's, coming it seemed from right next to her head, instantly awake and aware she grabbed the antiquated communications device.

"Sun!" getting up she switched the COM's to speaker and started getting dressed while her second in command explained the situation.

"Very good Major I will be there shortly, order the rest of the Civilian ships out of the area to give us some room to move. Sun out." Watching herself in the mirror as she straightened her uniform jacket then started doing up the numerous buttons and fastenings that made up the Colonial uniform. Aeryn Sun could not quite make herself believe how truly weird her life had become. Since the day, seemingly a lifetime ago, she had been caught up in the starburst of an escaping Leviathan and found herself in the company of the crazed Human scientist John Crichton.

They had run into Aliens with god like powers, been chased all over the Uncharted Territories. She now had Pilot DNA mixed with her own; she and Chiana were the godparents to a Leviathan Peacekeeper hybrid Gunship. They had been twined by that fahrbot Kaarvok then dragged along by the dying Leviathan Rovhu in his desperate starburst to some kind of Builders shipyard. Now they were in charge of a fleet of frelling humans, who being Human had of course built A.I.s who went mad and started killing everyone. To top it off, John was nearly convinced that the diseased Leviathan's starburst, while in a Peacekeeper control collar no less, something that should have been impossible, had been so dren that they were probably lost in time.

Again!

--ooo000ooo--

_Alpha 2 Patrol Group, Nike System._

"Frak, Medusa something's launched from the Sterling it looks old. Hades it looks ancient! It's fast though, maybe twice the size of a Raptor, we are moving in. Frak! The Frakkers armed!" Char threw her Viper into a mad twist to avoid the stream of rounds streaking at her from the target, just managing to pull out of the line of fire. The Raptor in formation behind her was not as manoeuvrable. Its pilot's reflexes not as good, it flew straight into the oncoming fire. The Raptors armoured hull took most of the hits but the small spacecraft was knocked into a spin and started leaking atmosphere before straightening out and gamely heading back into the fight.

"Silver Eyes pull back. 'Strife', 'Bulldog' move up to box him." Char jockeyed the controls trying to line up a shot while setting off her after-burners and still she and her wingmen were falling behind.

"Silver Eyes' to Char they're spinning up their FTL, they are going to try for a jump." Stated the Raptor's ECO's voice.

"Got-you." As the runners ship drifted into her cross hairs, Susan's thumb pressed firmly down on her auto-canons firing button. Unlike the runners her rounds were armour piercing. Chunks exploded from the fleeing ship but after it had ducked out of the line of fire it was still going as fast as ever and leaving her patrol's MK VIIs in its exhaust.

"Son of a gun. Switch to missiles Alpha 2. You tough fracker lets see how you like this." As Susan flipped up the series of switches arming the MK VII's missiles 'Strife' racing along on her port side let loose with another stream of AC fire, missing the franticly dodging target by a breath.

"Got tone, firing!" Char's Viper shuddered slightly as two of her four missiles streaked away, eating up the distance between her and the boxy slow looking but ridiculously fast ship she was chasing.

The first missile closed in and looked like it would make a clean strike when there was the familiar brilliant flash and the runner ship disappeared into a FTL jump the missile followed by its twin, diving through the same space less than a second later. The orphaned missiles sped on for a second, denied they're prey, before being destroyed by the command destruct signal sent by a pissed off Susan Usen.

"Damn." Char punched her fist savagely into the canopy above her head.

"Medusa this is Lead Alpha 2 I lost them the runners have jumped. Repeat the runners have jumped."

--ooo000ooo--

_C.I.C, Battlestar Medusa, Nike System._

Aeryn reached the command deck in time to hear Captain Usen's report and the cursing it caused amongst her command staff. Aeryn felt like cursing herself but as John would say "the cat was out of the bag now, no use crying about it", or some other ridiculous but somehow appropriate Erp saying. With two quick strides she was at the inter-fleet communication station. Her hand rested gently on Specialist Michele Owens shoulder for a second, offering silent comfort to the girl. Misty Owens knew as well as they all did what the escape of the runners meant. Their luck had run out.

"Get me Hades Actual, Specialist." The former Peacekeeper's voice was brisk and calmly authoritative in contrast to her comforting gesture a second ago.

"Aye Sir." Misty Owens hands shook slightly as they went through the familiar motions but her voice was steady as she talked to her opposite number on the _Hades_. She had watched a world burn as they were evacuated from the Academy. On the last of the troop carriers Commander Crichton and, the then Colonel Sun had used to save who they could. The week after had been a blur of shouted instructions as the Fleet had run and hid and twice fought, with no time to organise anything. Most of the cadets who weren't immediately needed on the ships they had managed to salvage had been moved from ship to ship without any Idea of what was going on.

"Hades Actual, Sir."

"Colonel Torins what's the ETA for the return of Commander Crichton's expedition." Aeryn knew exactly when John was due back from his trip to check on Rovhu the Leviathan who was still healing even after all this time submerged in the planetoid sized ball of goo, which was apparently the Builders idea of a shipyard.

"Nine Hours, Forty minutes, Sir." Paula Torins slightly gravely voice came back instantly.

"Send a Raptor after him I am authorizing you to disclose the position of Cauldron as needed. On my Authority as temporary Fleet commander I am initiating operation Bug Out." Not even the Xarai that the healing powers of the Builders Goo had returned to something like Sebacean norm knew where Cauldron was.

"Operations pull up the co-ordinates for the Xiphos meeting with Galactica's forces and replace the first option Bug Out co-ordinates with them, make sure everyone has got the updated orders."

Aeryn Looked around her command deck, at her people as they hurried to the task's she had set them with a smooth military discipline. She did not regret leaving the Peacekeepers and had come to appreciate the freedom her life on Moya had given her. But she knew right down to her bones this is where she belonged, on a Military ship working with those who shared her Duty. The Peacekeepers had literally bred her for this and they had done their job well.

--ooo000ooo--

A/N.

(1) Xarai were the Peacekeeper crew of Rovhu when the Leviathan served as a prison ship. Kaarvok a prisoner onboard escaped during an attack and used his twinning beam on them over and over again making them devolve.

(2) The Builders are the Leviathan Gods and creators

(3) Gone a little AU here originally Aeryn stayed on Moya and never got twinned


	3. Chapter 3

**Battlestar Farscape**

By Mackon

**Chapter 3**

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Do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica writing for fun and to entertain not profit.

All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica:Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.

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--ooo000ooo--

_Briefing Room, Battlestar Galactica, System Unknown._

Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Mark Usen stood in the regulation at ease posture and looked at his audience, Commander Adama sat at the desk at the head of the room with President Laura Roslin next to him. Fanning out around the two central figures were Captain Lee Adama the Galactica's CAG and Presidential Aid Tory Foster(1) each standing next to their seated bosses. Completing the formation arrayed against him, well that's what it felt like anyway, were two marines in battle gear armed with battle rifles gunand a marine Sergeant. Commander Adama had addressed her as Master-at-Arms meaning she was the ranking marine NCO on board the Galactica but neither she nor the other marines had been introduced. There was also a blonde woman; a Viper pilot and an officer by her dress uniform, leaning with her back against the room's closed door.

They had all been tested using the Ragnar Effect grenade while Mark had been locked in Colonel Tigh's quarters and they were rushing his blood through their own Cylon test. It had all been organized very quickly after he had spoken to Commander Adama the first time.

"All right lieutenant, we are all here, why don't you start with your Fleet how many people, how many ships and of what classes." Adama started the ball rolling.

"Sir the Fleet numbers 47,438 survivors, we have two Capital ships the Columbia class Battlestar Medusa and The Hades which is the Flagship, then two Dreadnought Class Battle Cruisers; the Hyperion and Helios. The Hyperion is still under repair; she took a lot of damage during the Holocaust. The Frigate squadron has six units with one Calypso class ship and five Nautilus class ships, the support ships are one Repair Ship of the Dockers class, two Mule Class fleet tenders and three Tauron class troop carriers." Mark paused and took a breath. "Most of our ships were salvaged after the first fighting had died down, after the Cylon computer attack had killed the majority of the crews. Out of all our CDF ships less than a hundred of the original crews survived until we could flush and reboot their systems. We collected nearly a thousand disabled Vipers with the pilots still on life support from the outlying battle fields we could get too without showing ourselves to Cylon patrols."

The room was silent as everyone for a second was forced to think about the thousands, probably hundred of thousands of Colonials, both civilian and military that had died as their ships just shut down and turned off the air. The terror and hopelessness they must have gone through.

Mark shook off the horror, as he did every time he really thought about the Holocaust and focused back on the present and his report.

"There are also twenty nine civilian ships of various classes the biggest is the Botanical Explorer then the Hospital ship."

"The Botanical Explorer!? You have the Museum of Natural history's flagship with your fleet? Is it intact? Were there any survivors?." Laura Roslin interrupted, leaning forward suddenly animated and her eyes lighting with hope.

"Yes Madam President, we re-captured it on the first day, Colonel Torins she's the XO of the Hades now. Well she pretty much took over the evacuation ships that Commander Crichton sent to Camp Sparta. With the two Troop Carriers and her own wing of Marine dropships they boarded the Botanical Explorer, it was on its way from Picon to Aerelon. The Cylons had landed troops on board trying to take it intact. The marines managed to destroy them all, saved nearly 6000 people, tourists, crew and staff." Mark had been onboard one of the Troop Carriers after volunteering to man one of the ships gun turrets.

Captain Lee 'Apollo' Adama was frowning he had picked up on the rather odd way the lieutenant had listed the Capital ships of his Fleet. As if the Medusa was the ship of note, even through it was the Hades that carried the Flag.

"Lieutenant, you didn't mention the class, of the Battlestar Hades." Lee was pretty sure that he knew the names of every Battlestar that made up the CDF pre-holocaust and Hades did not ring any bells."

"Sir well… The Hades, actually the Hades isn't a Battlestar." Mark winced at this question but knew the story had to be told. "The Hades is a first war Hades class Command Basestar that we salvaged and are refitting Sir."

Commander Adama already knew about the Hades from Lieutenant Usen's first debriefing. But it was a shock to everyone else in the room where Laura Roslin and Tory Foster were the least affected by the news. Apart from a possible morale boost and any added protection it could provide they felt it was best left to the military, both were much more interested in the survival of the Botanical Explorer; that ship was a living piece of Colonial culture. It had a well-stocked library, a zoo full of animals from each world, a museum of their history and even a small teaching college.

For the CDF and CMC people it was a different matter. There had only been five Cylon command Basestars sighted during the war. Huge ships based on the same double saucer Basestar design the Cylons were equipped with during their first rebellion and attack The had appeared in the second year of the war coming from the huge factory moons the Cylons had built after their first devastating success.

Each massive Hades command Basestar led its own fleet of the smaller Assault or Devastator class Basestars, the Cylons main class of frontline battleship. The mobile factory/fortresses keeping the smaller ships supplied and repaired.

Smaller of course being a relative term, Devastator class Basestars had been built on much the same scale as the Galactica, although given their double saucer shape they mass was nearly three times that of the Colonial ship and Assault Basestars were barely smaller. The Hades class were a completely different animal, the first completely Cylon designed and built ship ever in seen in the war they were on a different scale, the massive command ships dwarfed any else every built.

Two had been destroyed towards the end of twelve-year war. It was thought that the loss of those ships, the core of the Cylon war machine, was one of the main reasons for the Cylon retreat.

"Where the Frakk did you get a Cylon Command ship from?" Lieutenant Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace nearly shouted, from her place at the room's door. Just managing to keep her voice down at the last second. She was supposed to be guarding the door to keep the secrets inside the room; not shouting them out to whoever was passing by in the hallway.

"Only the top Brass know all the details sir. It was passed along to the troops, when it first showed up, that it was recovered from the Cauldron system, but Cauldron is very hush hush. The Hades was completely intact and I was on board before they started cleaning it up, it was spooky. All these Cylons, must have been thousands of them, just lying where they fell or some still standing at their posts but inert, like someone just switched them all off. Hangers full of raiders, all just stopped. We have been ripping them apart and melting them down for three months now and there are still two cargo holds fall of them." Mark answered, feeling it prudent for now to leave out what had been done with those Cylons, Raiders and other ships that hadn't been melted down or scrapped.

"How did you find us Lieutenant?" Again Adama knew the answer but he wanted the meeting to move forward, not get stuck down on detail. He knew the boy in front of him did not know, or wasn't telling, anything else about the Basestar. Bill Adama was going to ask some questions of Commanders Crichton and Sun when they met through.

"We were able to intercept some enemy communications with the gear on The Hades so we knew when and where they tracked down the Galactica." Mark said mentally bracing himself.

"And it didn't occur to you to give us a heads up, maybe even help!" Lee Adama snapped, they had lost two Viper pilots in the last attack.

"Sir! Your people are still compromised by Cylon human replicants the Commander felt it an unacceptable risk to show ourselves before we could help you remove them. As far as our communications intercepts show they are unaware of the Fleet and it's an advantage we can not give away." Mark had heard the debates for and against joining up with other refugee groups; it was a major topic of conversation in the Fleet especially amongst CDF personnel.

"About that Lieutenant, this Ragnar Effect grenade, where did it come from? It looked like an old design, like things they were making years ago, but none of us have ever heard of anything like it." Laura Roslin broke in hoping to cut off an angry confrontation, she could see both sides of the issue and could see no point in discussing it now.

It worked, diverting all the military men and women in the room.

"Yes that's something I would like to hear too.' Adama added. It was one of the points he had yet to cover with the Lieutenant.

"Well sir they were stored at Fleet Headquarters over Picon in the Science Division, Commander Crichton took them with him when they evacuated the headquarters it wasn't until later that we found out what they were. The R E grenades were developed near the end of the first war, but were never put into production, because they don't work." Mark answered glad to be diverted from the brewing argument with his superior officer.

"What do you mean? They don't work?" Tory Foster yelped, forgetting her professionalism for a second. "What was all the urgency to get us tested with them if they don't work." Tory had been one of the last to be tested and had had to wait around while the thing recharged.

"Sorry ma'am. When I say, didn't work I mean they didn't do what the designers wanted. It was supposed to be a grenade to be used in combat. When the best they could do, had to be in direct physical contact with the enemy and with only an 83 percent kill rate even then. The project was abandoned. Commander Crichton picked up the prototypes; the box was marked grenades, as they were running through an old supply room. He thought they would come in handy." It was one of the better stories going around about Commander Crichton's escape.

"Thank you Lieutenant I think that will be all, unless anyone else has a question." Laura wanted to talk over what they had already heard and make some preliminary plans on how to deal with this other fleet.

When no one spoke up Sergeant Hadrian gestured for her men to escort Mark out.

When the young Lieutenant had left the room President Roslin looked around at her people. Then glanced over the collected military staff, before letting her gaze rest on the Battlestar Commander.

"Well Commander what are your thoughts?" Laura asked.

"There is something a little off with the story, but I can't put my finger on it. The young lieutenant is either a gifted actor or exactly what he appears to be. Master-at-Arms have you heard of this Colonel Torins." Adama knew that the marines were a very close knit community.

"Yes sir. I remember hearing about it when she was appointed Tactics Instructor at Camp Sparta, a good marine from all accounts." Sergeant Elster Hadrian answered.

"The Raptor should be arriving to meet with the Xiphos any time now; we will have more to go on when we have talked to her Captain." Lee Adama said, he was of two minds about their dealings with the other Fleet so far. But on the whole couldn't see how it could be a bad thing.

"It will be good to get some back up Sir, Madam President, things are getting thin down on the Flight deck." Starbuck threw in; since she had busted up her knee she'd had a lot of time to talk to her pilots.

"It will be a tremendous boost to morale Ma'am" Tory added.

President Laura Roslin listened, but most of her attention was on her vision of the future. A future that looked that much more secure now; with nearly doubling the number of survivors.

"Right, we wait for more information. Tory we are staying on Galactica at least until the Xiphos arrives and I have talked to Captain Carter you had better let Billy know." Laura Roslin ended the meeting.

--ooo000ooo—

_Leviathan Rovhu, Cauldron Artefact, Cauldron System._

John Crichton waded through the blue Goo, making his way through the familiar red and scarlet passageways heading to the Pilots Den. The Goo was down to his knees now and he could only take that as a good sign. When Rovhu had first landed on Cauldron and sank into the bizarre Builders structure, all the decks had flooded with the stuff and even with his life the way it had been for the last few years. Drowning had not been one of his happier experiences, learning humans/sebaceanes could breath the blue jelly like stuff had not made up for the minutes of panic as he and Aeryn had struggled to get out of the sinking Leviathan.

The two marines following him glared around, aiming their gun-lights into every corner, not liking the alien surroundings. Probably Seran was having a harder time of it than Price, Crichton thought, the Sebacean woman had the confused jumble of memories that was her past life to deal with. Before she woke up on the surface of Cauldron, while her Human partner only had trained paranoia and good old fear of the unknown to keep him starting at shadows.

Crichton didn't mind it at all really; mostly the dark corridors and slightly off angles of the doorways and walls reminded him of life on Moya. What freaked him right out was where the Leviathan was parked. This place, Cauldron as Pilot had named it dragging the information from somewhere buried deep in Rovhu's memory, it scared the beejesus out of him every time Crichton got to really thinking about it.

Most of the wonders he'd seen and been hit with since he'd been scooped up by the marauding wormhole had filled Crichton with, well, wonder. They'd amazed and astounded him even as most had tried their damndest to kill him and his friends. All of it just fed the part of him that was still the same little scientist who age seven had first blown up dad's garage making rockets. Everything from the said wormholes to the hetch drive and everything in between, they were all problems just waiting for John Crichton to work out the answers. But some things didn't, things like that whack job Maldis(2). Something Crichton's scientific background, even when dipping into the weird that was quantum, had no frame of reference to ever hope to explain or understand.

The Cauldron fell straight in that category, nothing about it made sense and the more he looked, the less sense it made.

Just sitting in space it violated everything John knew about physics. Even the most basic study of the thing would have had Einstein and Newton spinning in their graves. It had no north or south pole, a compass was just a nifty paper weight here. Without a magnetic field or a Van Allen Radiation Belt deflecting radiation from the systems sun this place should be fried to boiling point by solar winds, instead it was temperate and comfortable for humans and Sebacean alike. It was a comfortable one gravity, why? It didn't have the mass to produce it naturally and had no mechanism to produce it artificially. For no apparent reason and against all laws of common sense and physics it had a single mile's worth of perfectly fresh air, tinged with a slight fragrance of mountain forests clinging to its surface, again, why? And why the frell didn't it boil off into space. The thing was about quarter the size of planet Earth, give or take a continent or two. Roughly 1862 miles in diameter. Nothing wrong with that, right? That is until your start looking at the sums under a microscope and you realise that it wasn't random by any stretch of the imagination.

No, not random instead it was but flamboyant and arrogant as all get out. This thing had a diameter exactly one tenth of one light second. The one unit of measurement that every sentient star travelling creature, including displaced Earth astronauts, would recognize and they'd know that this thing was planed and somehow constructed.

On one hand it was like a giant billboard shouting 'look at me, someone made me, aren't I cool' and on the other, the whole bloody thing was totally impossible, something that couldn't possibly exist.

It really pissed Crichton off.

John shook his head irritably and shrugged his frustration with the Cauldron off. The place had saved all their lives which ever way you looked at it. So Crichton was willing to overlook the bending, twisting and out right breaking of a few laws. Even if they were supposed to be the immutable laws that ran the universe.

The small group turned the final corner toward the Den's main entrance bulkhead and Crichton was pleased to see that the walls, even here where the Xarai had done the most damage, looked healthy, more reminiscent of Moya than the diseased Leviathan he remembered. Leaning against the wall by the open door were three blue figures. Crichton frowned; there should have been four figures; Chiana, D'Argo and two Xarai.

Crichton quickened his pace. It was all but impossible to run on the Goo, as he had found out through trial and many, many errors, it had poor traction. John slid to a stop in front of his two friends he saw the body of one of the Xarai, a man, slumped down next to the other figures.

"Damn!"

Crichton didn't need to check to know that he was dead, he did anyway. He knew how the Goo acted after over a year and a half messing with the stuff. Even if he had no idea how it worked. Under the best microscopes and scanners he could build it just looked like blue Goo but put it next to an injury and it hardened into a crystalline shell which slowly faded away until it and the injury was gone. But in some cases the stuff decided there was no way to fix what ever it was healing, and then it just fell off; leaving the patient to his or her own devices. And considering the only ones it happened to so far had been dead before the blue cocoon formed, well it didn't leave much room to argue.

Leaving the corpse Crichton turned to study Chiana and D'Argo, they and the remaining Xarai still had a fine coating of blue so they were still healing. The Goo was amazing stuff, during the violent Starburst and the far more violent crash, Xarai had been crushed, impaled and had arms or legs ripped off. They had all, even the dead ones been fine in a few weeks, a month or two at the most. But apparently having all the fluids sucked out of your brain and spine was a bit trickier to heal.

"Yo Pilot how're you doing?" Satisfied with his friends' Crichton moved on through the open bulkhead into the Den.

"Both I and Rovhu are in excellent health; thank you for your concern Commander." Rovhu's Pilot did look good, all his arms had grown back and were now full sized. There wasn't even a scar where Kaarvok had jammed a probe into his skull.

John looked around. The shaft under the walkways was still filled with Goo but apart from that it looked achingly like the Den where he had spent hours talking with Moya's Pilot.

"Good day Private Seran, Private Price." The two Marines answered Pilot haltingly. Neither was comfortable with such an alien looking being. Crichton was sure that's why the Pilot always made a point of talking to his or Aeryn's escorts, whenever they visited. Rovhu's Pilot had not forgotten anything that happened to him and although not really wanting to hurt anyone. There was always an undercurrent of what Crichton could only think of as 'edginess' to his dealings with the Xarai. Still John supposed having your arms cut off and eaten over and over again would make anybody cranky.

"When do you think the Cauldron will be finished with Rovhu, Pilot?" This was worrying Crichton, he had expected the Leviathan to be healed by now. Rovhu was a sitting duck on the surface for any passing Cylon patrol and although something had interfered the last time the Cylons had paid a visit to Cauldron, something powerful enough to disable the Hades and the giant ship's entire compliment of CenturionsCylon crew; still Crichton didn't like leaving Rovhu's safety to whatever mysterious force or twist of luck had kept the machines at bay last time. Crichton had had a gut full of both and was hoping to be well away from this bizarre place long before what ever it was choose to appear again.

On the other hand while the Leviathan stayed on the Cauldron he was out of sight of the Fleet. And while neither he nor Aeryn had made a secret of their origins, they hadn't made a big deal of them either; the two Commanders had told their closest associates the whole story and made sure the emerging leaders of the Fleet knew at least the bare facts. Crichton was pretty sure that most people assumed they were just crazy and put up with them out of loyalty. He didn't know how they would react to having a real live alien ship suddenly thrust in their faces.

"One Weeken Commander, two at the most, Rovhu and I are looking forward to flying free again. If I may Commander, Rovhu is most interested, did the latest designs prove workable." John often brought his blueprints for updating Colonial technology with him when he visited, to let both the Pilot and Rovhu go over them. They had both helped him work the bugs out of just about all the systems he was slowly introducing to the Fleet. The only one they couldn't help with had been the defence screen and even with that they had proved to be quick studies.

"Yes indeedy Pilot, the Prowler schematics you provided and his insights into ship construction helped a lot, so did the computer models you whipped up." For beings like the Pilot; whose spoken language was more complex than most advanced computer programmes and multi-tasking a hundred different problems at a time came as easily as breathing, or the Leviathan that experienced the universe through so many different levels a mere humanoid life-form could barely conceive of it. Nether Colonial or Cylon computers had proven much of a challenge. They had created a software package that proofed the Fleet against computer malware attacks at the level the Cylons worked at in two hours, after John had shown them the problem.

"Commander, Rovhu has just detected another FTL event in orbit." Pilot reported sounding worried. John had told him his fears about the Cylon discovering the Leviathan.

"Damn! Can you make out what it is Pilot." Crichton answered.

"It appears to be match for Colonial signatures we have observed when you or Commander Sun come to visit sensor image matches the data you provided for a Colonial Raptor. It is making contact with the Guard in orbit." Crichton didn't like the sound of this, though better than the alternative as a Colonial ship could only mean trouble back at the Fleet.

"Let me speak to them Pilot." John ordered.

"One microt Commander, it should be simple to lock onto the frequencies they are using. Stand by, there, if you talk now I believe they will hear you." Pilot's arms moved gracefully as it worked four controls at once.

"Raptor that just jumped in, Identify your self." Crichton always had to stop himself from doing a John Wayne impression in these situations; it never went down well, even back on Earth when people had known what the frell he was going on about.

"This is Raptor 09 off of The Hades Commander." The pilot of Raptor 09 Lieutenant Rachel 'Swan' Archela was someone Crichton had worked with on the Hades. Another kid the girl had turned 17 three weeks ago.

"Hey Swan this is a restricted system, what are you and your bird doing here?" Crichton asked.

"Sir Commander Sun has declared operation Bug Out, we were sent to get you back. Sir what is this place, Colonel Torins said it was odd, but the readings we are seeing up here are strange." John could imagine, Cauldron looked like a giant bright blue ball from space 1862 miles across with another mile of atmosphere that had no reason to be there. The readings from the Goo always came back as indeterminate or unknown then there was the massive life sign of the Leviathan.

"I'll tell you all about it when I get up there Swan let my pilot 'Prowler' know I'm heading back to the Guard and you had better brief Captain Croft of what is going, on ETA ten minutes." 'Prowler' was the pilot of Crichton's ship, a yacht they had recovered during the holocaust, that the Hades used as a FTL capable shuttle. Captain Croft was the Captain of the CDF or more correctly Moyan ship the Guard the converted cylon corvette stationed here to protect Rovhu.

"Sir we could come down and pick you up." Lieutenant Archela said doubtfully.

"That's a negative Swan, Cauldron's not very friendly to thrust assisted ships, Crichton out." The Goo seemed quite happy supporting a ship once it had landed. But the downward exhaust created by Colonial ships tended to break the surface tension and they would sink like a stone.

Crichton turned to his Marines.

"Okay kids, looks like the excursion's been called off, come on." John started out of the Den.

"Pilot I got to go, either Aeryn or I will be here in two weekens to check on Pip and Big D. And to see Rovhu take off. Bye now."

--ooo000ooo--

Private Seran stuck her head out the airlock and quickly scanned the broad expanse of the Leviathan's back. Seeing nothing that wasn't there 25 minutes ago, she climbed up onto the living ship's hull and took position to cover Crichton as he joined her, then Private Price climbed up on rear guard. Seran breathed a silent sigh of relief being inside the thing was not good and she enjoyed the fresh air as they jogged down the gently slopping hull toward the shuttle.

The Shuttle was a Cylon machine, in fact it was the same one Crichton and Aeryn had discovered when they first crashed on Cauldron and it was a big one. Well as shuttles and other small craft went, much larger than a Raptor or those Marauders Seran sometimes had nightmares about trying to reach, struggling through fire and smoke.

When Crichton and Aeryn had first seen it the oblong shaped ship had been surrounded by deactivated silver robots and some still unidentified equipment. It had taken them a week to get it going, then they had flown to what they thought was the space station they could clearly see orbiting Cauldron. From there the two had taken the only FTL ship they could find that worked; the ship that was now the CDF system patrol ship Guard. It was the Cylon version of a frigate. Saucer shaped 3000 feet across with a large wedge cut out of the front jauntily named a Hunter-Killer, to the closest star system that had turned out to be home to the abandoned Nike Anchorage. There they had found records and discovered the Colonies.

The two humans and one sebacean jogged easily, making the run from Leviathan to shuttle in under a minute. Crichton took the controls. Strapping himself into a pilot seat designed for the larger frame of a Cylon Centurion.

--ooo000ooo—

The Shuttle landed easily with its antigrav lowering it to a soft contact between landing gear and shuttle bay. Crichton quickly exited the craft, feeling the urgency needing to get back to Nike and find out what was happening. Waiting to meet him outside the shuttle bay airlock were Captain Mace Croft and the two pilots: Lieutenant Rachel 'Swan' Archela from the Hades, Raptor, and Lieutenant 'Prowler' Kreen.

All three officers snapped to attention as Crichton and his marine escort came up to them.

Crichton acknowledged the salutes and turned to Lieutenant Archela.

"What happened Rachel?" John asked as soon as the three had eased off on their salutes.

"Sir just after you left we had another runner attempt. They had an old souped-up blockade-runner hidden on one of the civy ships. They made the Jump before the Viper patrol could knock them down. Medusa Actual immediately started operation Bug Out and ordered Colonel Torins to send us after you." Lieutenant Archela reported.

"Frell or Frak,? whatever, this isn't good, okay Rachel you come back with us see if you can keep up with the Yacht." Crichton was moving as he was talking heading for the bay containing his ship.

"We should have time to salvage the Anchorage and get everybody out of Dodge, if where really lucky the Cylons might even miss them and the idiots get away clean." Crichton said.

"I think the best we can hope for is if the Can Openers shoot first and there not anything left to question. Sir." Captain Croft opined as he escorted his guests to their ships.

--ooo000ooo—

_Blockade Runner Cheetah, Hydra System, Occupied Colonial Space._

Captain Alexander cursed as his ship wobbled off course again. The dammed Viper had got a big piece of the old pre war blockade-runner. The Cheetah was a tough ship with good thick armour, but still the old girl was pushing well past sixty, ancient for a space ship. She just couldn't take too much of a beating from modern weapons.

Alexander wrestled the sluggishly responding ship back under control. He and his crew could not afford for the Cheetah to act up now. They were making their way, carefully, through the Hydra asteroid belt. Heading for the Base, which meant they needed every ounce of agility, their ship could produce, or some lump of rock would swat them like a fly.

Finally after a terrifying flight they cleared the debris field and broke out into the small clearing the Base occupied. Alexander let himself relax a bit. The tension had been mounting since he and his crew had embarked on their grand plan. As he set his ship on final approach to the abandoned mining station that had become the headquarters of the Alexander Syndicate he thought over the plan, they had very nearly not made it.

He and his crew, all shareholders in good standing with the Alexander Syndicate were not like the normal runners. Those fools in the months since the holocaust seemed to just go nuts. Believing they would be safer on their own or that they needed to get back to the Colonies to save someone or just to die at home. People would snap and one day try to take a ship and run.

No, Alexander knew he was better off with the Medusa and the other Colonial warships around. What he objected to was his new place in the scheme of things. There was no way that he; an experienced and respected Free trader (read pirate) was going to end his days as some anonymous factory worker, thus the Plan.

The Cheetah was not the only ship the Alexander Syndicate boasted they also had collected over the years' one nearly new commercial space tug. With it they planned on making a quick run through the Colonial home systems. During the attack the Cylons had used their trojan horse or a logic bomb or what the damn toasters had used to take out the bulk of the Colonial Defence Forces. More often than not they had followed up with missiles, or riddled the helplessly drifting ships with rail gun fire. But sometimes according to what Alex could get from official reports and eye witness accounts, sometimes they just flew off and let the ships and its crew to die.

That meant there were still some perfectly intact ships floating around. If they could snag something and Alexander was confident that his tug could take a destroyer or maybe even a light cruiser, if they had time to rig it right. Then they would head back to the Nike system instant Heros and more to the point, back on the right end of the pecking order.

Besides they had really needed to get away from the Fleet for a while. It had just been the Syndicate's bad luck that when the Attack came, they had been in the middle of re-negotiating the ownership of the Sterling. When it became obvious that they would have to hook up with the military, well they could hardly have the planet taxi's original crew running around telling tales could they. Turning up in the Cheetah, which had quite a reputation, would not have worked either, so there had been no choice. It had all been sweat, but now the damn Marshals had got themselves organized and were operating out of their new offices on the Hades. People were nosing around, asking questions.

The old blockade-runner settled down onto its landing pad with a groan. Alexander and his crew sealed their pressure suits and made the short walk across the airless chamber to the airlock leading into the mining station's admin and living quarters. The pirate Captain was working through in his mind what they needed to do.

Out of the original ten-man team one had never shown up, back on the Leading Star and another two had been killed as they had made their getaway. Cut to pieces when an Auto Cannon round had ricocheted around inside the small engineering compartment. The tug had not been used in a while and would need at least some work to get it ready. As he cycled through the small airlock and walked into his head-quarters he was already picturing the scene. The Syndicate's triumphant return with his new Light Cruiser re-named the Alexander, in tow. His second in command and co-pilot threw the big power switch mounted just inside the inner door and light flooded the common room.

Captain Luke Alexander ex merchant marine and Pirate staggered to a halt, stunned by the sight of an incredible blonde, dressed in stylish yet practical matching black pants and black tank top with black boots and a black jacket like one of those rich bitches playing at a ski resort. Standing right there as bold as brass, in the middle of his base. It was not until their eye slits lit up and the red glow started scanning from side to side with a nightmarish hum, that he noticed the Centurions lining the walls.

"Fancy meeting you here. We were just having a look around, we didn't expect guests" Six smiled dazzlingly at the three shaking humans in front of her. The beautiful smile grew wider as the man in the centre of the trio slowly slumped to his knees.

"I think we will have a chat."

--ooo000ooo--

A/N

(1) Thought Roslin needed a few more bodies around her so I brought in Tory early, besides Rekha Sharma is hot.

(2) Maldis was a malevolent, powerful being with that seemed supernatural. Maldis gained strength from the life forces of others' pain and death and as a result used his abilities to encourage negative emotions such as fear, anger, hate, and pain in his victims.


	4. Chapter 4

**Battlestar Farscape**

By Mackon

**Chapter 4**

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Do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica writing for fun and to entertain not profit.

All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica:Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.

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--ooo000ooo--

_Xiphos Rendezvous System._

Lt. Junior Grade Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii fought the dark fog that for the last few weeks seemed to be creeping up on her thoughts, pushing it to the back of her mind and focusing on the controls of her Raptor.

"First scan complete we have four gas giants, one asteroid field, one big lump of rock and two small balls of ice, no Battlestar." Lt. Junior Grade Margaret 'Racetrack' Edmondson, Sharon's ECO had been shocked and exited by their mission brief, to investigate rumours of Colonial Defence Force survivors in the system.

"Where has the Old Man been, to hear rumours of other survivors, I haven't heard any that's for sure." Racetrack called up to the cockpit, hoping to start a conversation with Boomer. Margaret had noticed her friend had been quiet and moody the whole mission and was getting a little worried about her.

"We'll jump further in-system for the second scan." Boomer decided ignoring the other woman.

Margaret sighed and began running coordinates through the navigation computer, programming for a Jump that would put the Raptor between the airless rock planet and the asteroid field.

Sharon started the pre-jump checklist, keeping her eyes locked on her control panel and not thinking about anything else.

Suddenly red-warning lights flashed in her Heads up Display and Racetrack was screaming.

"Active Scanning! We've been target locked, get us out of here!" Racetrack desperately powered up the Electronic Counter Measures board, but whoever it was had them dead to rights, the scan had too good a look at the unprepared Raptor and she couldn't break the lock.

Boomer slammed the throttles to full power and threw the Raptor into a wild series of turns, climbs and dives. Wrenching the two women about in their safety harnesses as the small ship twisted through space.

"FTL event, Lords it's right on top of us." Racetrack called from behind her. Sharon was too busy to answer the brilliant white flash of a Jump lit up the cockpit and the Raptor pilot threw her whole weight onto the control stick and slammed her feet on the pedals. Her Raptor shuddered as the manoeuvring thrusters burst into life, flipping the ship end to end facing away from the larger warship bristling with guns that had appeared in front of it.

"Raptor power down, you are locked up tight. If we detect any attempt to jump we will fire on you. Repeat power down, this is the CDF Frigate Xiphos you were supposed to be expecting us." The Communication panel came to life filling the cockpit and EC compartment with an unfamiliar voice with a distinctive Libran accent.

Lt. Edmondson was completely focused on her ECM board trying to break the target lock, it took her a second to realize that the Raptor was no longer manoeuvring and engines formally screaming at full thrust were powering down.

"Boomer what are you doing! We have to get out of here." Turning to her pilot she saw Sharon was turning off the ships systems one by one.

"Calm down Racetrack this is it what the Commander sent us here for, he knew they were here and they knew we were coming looks like we were the only ones who didn't know what was going on." Sharon, having got over her shock, finished shutting down leaving only the COM's with power.

"Roger Xiphos powered down waiting for further instructions." Sharon was getting exited, more survivors, they were real. She hadn't known what too expect when she got this mission but to actually see another CDF ship, it seemed like a dream come true. The dark fog that had been pressing into her mind with thoughts of death withered and Boomer shuddered as she realized it was excited too. I am going mad the pilot thought.

"This is Captain Carter of the Xiphos, Standby to manoeuvre and land, we are picking you up." Boomer brought the manoeuvring thrusters back online and turned the Raptor around, to face the _Xiphos_. Racetrack came up from the ECM compartment and slipped into the co-pilot's chair. They both watched as the _Xiphos_ rapidly closed the distance between them.

At first glance the _Xiphos_ looked nothing like its civilian counterpart _Colonial One_, covered in thick armour with two large military engine pods replacing the four splayed fins of a commercial drive. It wasn't until you looked past these features, that you saw the resemblance, the high forward mounted conning tower holding the bridge and the shape of the hull.

The larger ship came charging up to the Raptor, seemingly about to collide with it slowing down and turned slightly. Presenting the starboard shuttle bay the armoured doors just finished retracting as they were swallowed.

Boomer quickly set the Raptor down on one of the yellow lift heads and turned to look at Racetrack sitting next to her.

Margaret was slowly getting her bearings, when that target lock had caught them, trying to get away had pushed everything else out of her mind but now they were landing on a CDF ship that wasn't the _Galactica_, others had survived the Holocaust. The spark of hope she had felt at the beginning of the mission burned brightly and she found herself grinning.

The familiar shudder of the landing deck lift shook the Raptor, as they sank into the shuttle bay deck. The top of the Raptor dropped below the surface and the armoured airlock slid closed. Inside the Raptor the two Lieutenants could make out the hiss of air rushing into the lift shaft as it pressurized. Then the lift was dropping them into a well-lit hanger bay and they were looking at people wearing the same uniform as them, people that they hadn't known existed 10 minutes ago.

Boomer and Racetrack slowly climbed down their Raptor's landing ramp to the cheers of the surrounding CDF ground crews. They both felt a bit intimidated, the _Xiphos_ was obviously a very new ship as it was bright and clean with all the newest technology; a stark contrast to the _Galactica's_ 46 year old well worn looks.

Right in front of them six people were not cheering although they were smiling; four marines in battle gear, a marine officer and a CDF Captain.

"Lieutenants first off we have to make sure you are not Cylons please turn around, lace your fingers together behind you heads and drop to your knees this will only take a second." The marine officer spoke, the guards were not pointing there guns at the two _Galactica_ crew members but the threat was obvious, sharing another glance Boomer and Racetrack did as they were told.

Sharon's mind raced. This was it, they would find out she was a Cylon and shoot her down, and then it would finally all be over. Or maybe she would find out she was crazy after all. Something cold was pressed against the back of her neck and she heard Margaret gasp, a loud click and a sharp pain right between her eyes, she barely stopped herself from shouting out. The dark fog that had haunted her for weeks was gone!

"Clear!" The marine officer called out and the two Galactica Lieutenants cautiously climbed back to there feet.

Margaret turned to face the_ Xiphos__'s _Captain amazed that that was all it took to tell if someone was a Cylon and a little pissed at being suspected, but she knew that they had to be sure. Boomer seemed stunned so Racetrack took a step forward and saluted

"Sir, Lieutenant Edmondson, Electronics Officer from the Galactica." As she said this she could feel her grin try to brake out again but managed to stay straight-faced.

"Sir, Lieutenant Valerii, Raptor Pilot from the Galactica." Sharon managed to shake off her shock and saluted as well.

Greenbean Carter, Captain of the CDF Frigate _Xiphos_ returned their salutes with a mental sigh of relief. When the Raptor had run like that he had thought the whole mission was going to Hell.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Captain Carter, this is my ship the Xiphos, the two of you follow me to my briefing room, and we have some talking to do." Boomer and Racetrack saluted again and walked out the hanger after the Captain. As they went down the corridor they could hear POs screaming for people to get back to work. Racetrack noticed something odd, as they walked through the ship. It struck her how young they all looked. Apart from the Captain and a few Petty Officers she hadn't seen anyone she would place over twenty years old and quite a few that she guessed were well under that. It was a ship of children.

--ooo000ooo--

_Command Ship Hades, Nike System._

John Crichton clattered down the ramp and onto the steel decks of the _Hades_. The huge upper hanger of the oversized Basestar spread out around him. From where he stood Crichton could see hundreds of crew working on dozens of ship's. Vipers of every mark, re-built Raiders and shuttles and the menagerie of small craft the Moyans had picked up since the holocaust.

Crichton set off for command, fielding a few salutes hastily thrown at him by crew rushing to get the giant ship ready for FTL.

The old Cylon ship was still being refitted for the Fleet's use. Its designers had not planned on having any number of humans on board and all though it had started out with some minimal life support, there had been nothing like the capacity in life-support for the nearly 30 000 people now living here. The plumbing alone for that many had been a nightmare, it meant just to start, miles of pipes to be laid to get water where it was needed and waste away from where it was no longer wanted.

And those pipes had to be made so while living spaces were built an equal and even more frantic effort had gone into retooling the ships factories.

The _Hades_ was more of a mobile space going city than a warship. The hangers, weapons, huge engines and the control centre, they were all secondary, built around the four massive factory warehouse complexes. The _Hades_ was designed to supply a fleet of Basestars to keep the Cylon warmachine stocked with ammunition and the guns ships and Cylons to use it.

The 20,000 civilians now living here had made their home in one of the two upper saucer section warehouses. With room to spare, while the other warehouse was being converted into a hydroponics farm. The two in the lower saucer section were still stuffed to the gills with Cylon machinery, which was slowly being fed into the reworked factories. The first factory that Crichton and the Colonials had retooled was devoted to turning captured Centurions, Raiders, Planetary assault Shuttles and the Hunter-Killer corvettes back into ingots of metal and vats of plastic . From there the raw materials went on to become the new Vipers, weapon systems, sensors, Defence Screens and a hundred other projects. Some like the new Vipers were near to completion, the first production models already past testing and the assembly lines ready to roll. Others like the Hetch drive were months away from showing any results.

Crichton completed the ten-minute jog to the lifts. That was another thing they were working on, a problem that always seemed to be getting bumped further down the to-do list by more important projects. John thought as he slapped the call button. It was a nightmare to get around on this tub; Cylons with their multi-tasking were not big on things like travel tubes and lifts, which were standard issue on Colonial ships. After all why would one particular Centurion need to get to a certain part of the ship when the Centurions there already knew how to do the job?

The _Hades_ was slowly becoming a human vessel. Human touches were growing out from heavily used areas like weeds. Command that sat in the middle of the lower saucer section around which the 7,300 strong crew had their quarters and worked daily had been completely refurnished. The other major areas of human use like the civilian town, the larger factories and the farm warehouse, were on their way to matching it. All being rebuilt so that in some places it would be hard to tell that you were not on a Colonial ship.

And some it was hard to tell you were on a ship at all.

John didn't have to wait long for a lift, even with everyone using them they were efficient as all hell. When then Cylons did decide they needed to get from A to B they didn't let little things like terrifying speeds get in their way. By the time the Colonials had had the resources to change it, they were already used to the dizzying speed of the lifts; or so everyone said, they still made John feel ill. Crichton stepped into the big capsule (20 people if they were friendly) , finding himself alone and tapped the command for the _Hades_ bridge.

With a sudden heaviness, as the anti-grav and inertial dampers made sure Crichton didn't become a stain on the roof, the lift car took off at harrowing speeds. Shooting from the base of the massive ship straight into its armoured core. Crichton was just getting his stomach under control when the damn thing arrived at Command level and the doors slid smoothly open.

Outside the doors to the lift one of the security measures Aeryn and Paula Torins had insisted on blocked the way. An armoured compartment just over fifteen metre's square. Eight inch walls built from the strongest alloys the Moyans could make sealed off the lift head from the rest of the Command deck. The lift exited out of the back wall, another set of massive reinforced doors stood directly, opposite always closed and locked when not in use. The rooms corners were cut horizontally by firing slits for the mounted crew served heavy machine guns that could turn any Centurion that made it this far to confetti with a deadly and overwhelming crossfire. Quiet frankly John could have done without it, he could see the logic even the necessity, but it always creeped him out slightly stepping through those doors. Knowing that the marines who served here were trained to a knifes edge and were, as far as humanly posbile after a six hour shift, always reading for an infiltrator or just a crazy to charge out of the lift with a bomb or a gun.

Two of those marines wearing half armor stood guard flanking the door out onto the _Hades_ bridge, their battle rifles held across their chests.

The sight of the guns caught Crichtons attention as the two guards went through their routine to make sure he was who he said he was and pass him through out onto the bridge. It always jarred Crichton thought, the mix of technologies the Colonials had, as the two Marines snapped to attention and saluted. Here were a people that had an FTL drive better than the Peacekeepers, gravity control as good as anybody's in the UTs and 50 years ago they'd had Artificial Intelligence and robotics good enough to build the Cylons and they were running around with chemical powered kinetic weapons. He wished he could study some other examples of old Kobolian tech, see what else they'd had back then.

John strode onto the Command deck trying to project the cocky "never fear Crichton's here" attitude that the kids that made up his Fleet expected of him.

"Commander on Deck!" the shout went out as soon as he was sighted and people started saluting.

"At ease, everyone back to work." Crichton said, looking around for his second in command, spotting Colonel Torins heading towards him from the Dradis area Crichton moved to meet her.

"Sir!" Colonel Paula Torins probably the universe's senior officer of the Colonial Marine Core and XO of the largest human warship was a stickler for protocol, at least on the small stuff, and it always got her aristocratic nose out of joint, if Crichton tried to use a casual tone.

"Colonel, Report." Crichton ordered, very GI at least in his own mind.

"Commander operation Bug-Out is proceeding on schedule, the Colonial Movers are just about to start docking with Nike Anchorage and the crew on board are already salvaging the parts. Crews from the Hades and Medusa are on their way to join them. The Hospital Ship, the Botanical Explorer and the other critical civilian ships have just started jumping out. By Commander Sun's orders we have switched destination to the rendezvous point with Galactica's forces." Colonel Torins was a tall thin woman 45 years old with classic oriental features.

"Right, get a nuke over there Paula. Even if the toasters give us the time we need to strip the Anchorage bare, there still might be something left that would give them Ideas we don't won't them having." It was only in the last few weeks that the centre of operations had moved from the Anchorage to the Hades, which included all of Crichton and his teams design work.

"Then join me in my office." Crichton finished. Colonel Torins gave a brisk nod and strode off.

Crichton hurried over to the Communication desk. Jarin one of the Xarai was crewing a new station. A system added only six days ago.

"Chief, get me a vid link to Medusa. I want to speak to Commander Sun and Major Dies. Have it piped through to my office" Crichton was pretty sure that Jarin had been a Tech specialist before he had been messed around with by Kaarvok; the man had helped a lot in converting Leviathan holographic technology and integrating it into the Colonial communication equipment.

"Aye Sir." Like most of the Xarai, Chief Petty Officer Jarin had only confused memories of his life before Cauldron. He had slipped easily into the CDF and his skills with communication equipment had caught Commander Crichton's attention. He was put in charge of the holographic display project after he, Crichton and a team of other Xarai Techs and Colonial scientists had finished the basic design. It had seemed low priority to Jarin but Commander Crichton said if he was going to be the Captain of a Starship then he was going to have a big view screen to enjoy the scenery. Jarin was pretty sure he was joking.

Colonel Torins stepped into Crichton's office. John was at his desk talking to someone on the vid terminal. His feet up on the desk corner leaning back causally in his chair, hands crossed behind his head. When he saw Paula hesitating at the door, not wanting to disturb his conversation, he threw her a grin and lazily waved her over. While Paula had got John to except the need for strict protocol in front of the lower ranks, she had given up trying to get him to act with the dignity befitting his rank, on his own turf as he called it.

Paula Torins had been amazed when she met the two of them. She couldn't even in her own thoughts break up the team.

Commander John Crichton and Commander Aeryn Sun.

She a Marine a veteran and a Colonel on her second twenty-year hitch and she had been at a total loss, on the day the worlds ended. Listening to the Fleet being destroyed, reports of Cities being nuked, and millions dying every minute. Crazy ideas of guerrilla warfare or attacking the Basestars in Camp Sparta's squadron of Marine drop-ships had been as far as she had planned so far, when two troop carriers had dropped out of the sky landing right on the parade grounds with orders from Commander Crichton.

It was that, that had got her thinking again. After that organizing the liberation of the Botanical Explorer had been the next logical tactical step, once the strategic plan, evacuating everybody they could from the occupied Colonial solar systems, had been made clear. Looking back over it, a week later, determining at what time the orders had to have been given to get those troop carriers to her when they did. She had realised that Critchon had already been planning for the escape of the human race minutes after the first Battlestar had died.

Of course it wasn't as clever as she had first thought. While she and her comrades in the CDF and CMC had been denying what they saw and heard, because it meant the end of everything they knew. John Crichton and Aeryn Sun had been dealing with the facts and forming plans. But then as she found out, they weren't John and Aeryn's worlds that were about to end. But now after knowing them for the last three months and working with John almost every day, Paula Torins had come to the conclusion that even if it had been, they would have reacted the exactly the same way, it was just what they did.

Paula walked around the other side of the desk to see whom he was talking to. Confirming her guess, there weren't that many of the vid terminals set up yet.

"Commander Sun, Hal." Colonel Torins greeted the Commander of the Battlestar Medusa and her XO.

"Paula." Aeryn smiled at her while Major Hal Dies nodded.

"Right we're all here, you guys have had more time to think about it, how does this affect operation Bo-Peep." Crichton took his feet off the desk giving his First Officer room to move fully into the vid terminals range.

"I think we will need to speed it up John, if the Cylons find out about the intercept capability that the Hades gives us, they might guess that we would try to hook up with other refugee groups." Aeryn said straight away.

"And then they would increase their attempts to destroy the other groups." Hal Dies finished for his Commanding Officer.

"But we don't know how infiltrated the other refugee groups are, we have already initiated contact with the Galactica group and the Civy Council is getting nervous; they sent a petition moaning about our jeopardizing the future of human kind." Paula Torins said, trying to speak for the side of caution a lonely spot in this crowd.

"What do they want us to do?" Hal asked.

"It's just a long ramble about the sacred trust and life being too precious to gamble with, but a little rat told me that Meci had them voting on a motion to offer shelter to President Roslin and the Galactica and sever ties with the quote "Cylon infected ships" unquote. Before Marshal Perseus talked them down." Paula answered.

The four Officers exchanged disgusted looks. They had all had to deal with the Civilian Council at one point or another. Crichton had to wonder about people that with everybody working two jobs would take time out to set up a bureaucracy. Aeryn muttered something about Rigel without the charm or good looks.

"There are three main dangers from infiltration. The main one, being discovery, is out of the bag. If we assume the Runners are caught and interrogated by the Cylons." Crichton quickly held up a hand before anyone could answer him "Which we have got to do. Bug-Out was the only option." He finished in a rush.

"Right but that still leaves us with sabotage and espionage." Paula put in.

"Which are both too costly to tolerate, we barely have any redundancy at all and can't, even from a strategic stand point, risk the Cylons blowing stuff up. And if we ever hope to add that redundancy to our assets we can not let the tin heads get their claws on the new systems and upgrades." Aeryn stated.

"But at the same time, now that they know we exist the time until we will be fighting Cylons is drastically shortened and no longer under our control. We have to plan for them to find us next week and the week after that. So we need back up and the only place we are going to get it in time is the refugee groups. We will just have to deal with the Replicants." Crichton settled back in his chair, unless something new was thrown into the discussion then he and Aeryn had reached a decision.

There was a knock on the cabin's hatch.

"Enter." Crichton's stomach twisted, this wasn't going to be good.

"Sir, the Com centre just passed the word, the Cylons have changed the encryption on the signal intercepts." Chief Jarin stepped into the office.

"Well that's it then, they know something." Crichton looked around at his command staff. They all looked a bit grim, but Aeryn wasn't the only one whose eyes had lit up with the prospect of a fight.

"Aeryn the Medusa is on detached duty. You are to implement Operation Bo-Peep, leave the Helios with me, you take the Frigates as it's more their kind of gig. Paula send one of our Raptor wings over to the Medusa as well. They will need all the scouts they can get." Paula nodded then moved out of the room ushering the Chief Petty Officer ahead of her.

On the screen John saw Hal also leaving; in seconds he was as alone with Aeryn as he was likely to get for the next few weeks.

"So how are you doing Sun Shine.?" Crichton said with a smile, one that was only slightly forced, they had had to work apart from each other a lot over the last three months, keeping the Fleet running.

"I am good John, remember I was bred for this, its you I worry about." Aeryn could quite clearly see John, as she had first seen him, a naïve do-gooder, optimistic to a fault and nearly incapable of taking care of himself in the big bad universe.

John smiled a little wider realizing what Aeryn was thinking about.

"Hey even back then, I saved all our buts more often than not." Crichton said waggling his eyebrows so the radiant Aeryn Sun would know which butt he was talking about.

"Agreed, but it was usually you who got us into trouble in the first place." Aeryn let a rare smile cross her face, but then turned serious.

"John, how are D'Argo, Chiana, Rovhu and his Pilot." The former Peacekeeper didn't make friends easily, even now and she missed the Luxan and the Nebari girl and although she had not bonded to this Pilot like she had to the one she knew on Moya; she had a soft spot for Leviathans.

"They're doing good, another of the Xarai died though. I think it was that guy from Kaarvok's Lab, you know the one with..." Crichton made a vague gesture over his face and Aeryn grimaced, she did know having found the body.

"Big D and Pip are both still healing, most of the Goo seems to have been absorbed. Pilot thinks Rovhu will be ready to try his wings in two weeks and that looks like a pretty good estimate for D'Argo and Chiana as well." Crichton answered.

Aeryn felt a tiny part of the worry for her friends ease. She wouldn't really feel better about it until she had them both alive and well in front of her."

"John." Aeryn started to say.

"Dradis Contact." Crichton could hear the shout from outside his own office and echoing through from Aeryn's side of the vid terminal.

"Well back to work, love ya babe." Crichton shouted as he ran from the cabin, Aeryn had already been moving.

--ooo000ooo--

_Xiphos Rendezvous System._

"Dradis Contact!"

Before the shout was finished Captain Carter was heading out of the Briefing room, Boomer and Racetrack followed him onto the frigates compact bridge.

"Sir, we are getting the Fleet IDF, looks like the Hyperion and several of the Civilian ships" The Ops Lieutenant was reporting as they caught up with him. Again Racetrack was struck with how young the crew of this ship was.

"Get me whoever is in charge over there." Carter ordered.

"Aye Sir!" Communication Specialist James Piro answered.

"Sir, Lieutenant Gentry from the Hyperion." Specialist Piro reported.

"Captain Carter this is Lieutenant Gentry, Commander Air Group on the Hyperion, I am to be stationed covering this system as we move here for operation Bug-Out." The Lieutenant's voice came over the COM's, both Boomer and Racetrack frowned as they tried to place the accent and couldn't.

"I see." Carter thought furiously, if operation Bug-Out had been activated, then the entire Fleet would be here in less than 24 hours.

"Did you bring any new orders for Xiphos. Lieutenant Gentry." Operation Bug-Out could mean scrapping of the mission to meet up with _Galactica_.

"Just verbal for you to carry on Sir." Lieutenant Gentry signed off.

"Operations, do we have the Coordinates the Lieutenants supplied." Captain Carter turned to his Ops Officer.

"Yes Sir, we were plotting it before the others arrived." The Ops Lieutenant reported.

"Sir, May I speak with you in private." Everyone in the small Command Centre turned to look at Sharon in surprise. Boomer kept her eyes on Captain Carter refusing to look at Racetrack.

Captain Carter looked at the Lieutenant from the Galactica, he couldn't remember seeing anybody so grimly determined.

"Alright Lieutenant, come back to my briefing room with me." Carter said

Boomer nodded once and followed the Xiphos CO.

Once the were back in the briefing room, Carter turned to find that Lieutenant Valerii had removed her gun belt and was laying on the desk.

"What's this all about Lieutenant?" Carter was getting curious and more than a little alarmed with what ever was going on; the Lieutenant was taking it deadly serious.

"Sir, when your officer did your Cylon test, I felt something." Boomer had to stop before she started crying, she grabbed a hold of herself and concentrated on what she had to do.

"Lieutenant most people feel a small shock when tested. I did." Greenbean breathed a sigh of relief. It was all some kind of mistake, but Sharon was shaking her head.

"No Sir I felt something go away, something died when I felt that shock, for weeks now I have been feeling something in my mind. Pushing me always pushing me, I would wake up out of my bunk and know I had been trying to do something wrong. I thought I was going crazy but then your test was done and I felt this black thing in my mind die." Sharon was leaning into the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself, as if to get warm in the sudden cold.

This was not something covered in Officer Candidate School but it seems he was the one to deal with it.

"You know what you're implying Lieutenant." Gods he hoped she was crazy.

"Yes Sir, after the Holocaust we were Jumping although the Civilian shipping lanes looking for survivors. I think." Sharon took a shuddering breath" I think they must have captured me and done something. Put something in my head. Sir on the Galactica you don't know what it's been like. These last three months we have been through hell together. I can't go to the Old Man and tell him I've had a demon in my mind plotting against everyone. I request you transfer me to the brig on the Hyperion Sir." Sharon finished.

It was done now.

--ooo000ooo—

A/N

Well another chap completed (Thanks again to Tweeky for the excellent beta work) could I just make a request to reviewers? If you spot a problem could you zero in on it. A generic 'there are problems' statement doesn't help us find what needs fixing. Both my beta reader and I have gone over these chapters dozens of times looking for things to improve and fix. Which means we miss things that new or fresh eyes might spot. Those errors that have been pointed out in enough detail so I can find what has caught a reviewer's eye have been corrected.

This in no way should be counted as discouragement to critical reviewers! Just that if you see a problem please give me enough information to identify and correct it. Its really frustrating being told there's something wrong and not being able to find it.

Also be aware that I'm Australian and that mostly I use spelling etc. that reflects that fact.

Thank You.


	5. Chapter 5

**Battlestar Farscape**

By Mackon

**Chapter 5**

Do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica writing for fun and to entertain not profit.

All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica:Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.I.C, Battlestar Medusa, Nike System**

"Set condition one throughout the ship." Major Dies voice rang through the Columbia class Battlestar's halls.

Aeryn stood on the observation deck overlooking the CIC her people were tense. All through out the ship people ran to their battle stations.

"What have you got Lieutenant Tlarnc?" Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Tlarnc stood next to Lt. Koine Perry at the Dradis Board.

"Sir, long range scanners have picked up an FTL event, it's too far out to get any clear reading, it's large though." The Xarai Tactical officer reported.

"The Warbook can only give it a 32 percent probability as a Cylon Basestar; we will need a closer scan to get a better idea." Lieutenant Perry the Operations officer added.

"Would we have detected anything with standard scan?" Aeryn asked.

"No Sir, it's well out of conventional Dradis range." Lieutenant Perry reported.

"Sir, I have Hades Actual on line." Petty Officer Second class Mycen said from his communications station.

"John, you're on Speaker" Aeryn pointed at the communications Officer, silently commanding him to let everyone hear Crichton's reply.

"I've ordered the Salvage teams to drop what they're doing and run for it. They will have cleared the Anchorage in 25 to 30 minutes, the last one out will set a nuke on 5 minute delay in 40 minutes time; I want this system clear of all Fleet personnel. The Hades will be Jumping in, in four minutes, good luck Medusa." Crichton sounded confident for the troops but Aeryn heard the worry in his voice.

"Sir, the Civilian ships are jumping out and the Helios has left formation and is headed for the Hades." Tactical Officer Tlarnc said watching the Dradis board.

"Yes, the Frigates will be acting as our escorts for now. Hal get with Tactical and start plotting a Jump out there with the new contact. This is a scout, they send a Basestar into the outer system, and then they will dispatch raiders to check us out. I would rather go out and meet them." Aeryn walked down into the control pit and looked at the Dradis board, her eyes lingering on the largest contact, the Hades for a second, then she turned her attention to the blurry contact right on the edge of the screen.

"Recall all ships except for those working on the Anchorage they are to head for Bug-Out; we will meet up with them later. When you have the FTL coordinates that will put us in the vicinity of the suspected Basestar; relay them to the Frigates immediately." Commander Sun ordered.

"Status update, we have eight bogies, they've just come into the long range scan, outer envelope Dradis is getting a solid look at them." Lieutenant Perry announced; he was already running the new contacts through the Warbook identification software.

"95 percent match with Scimitar class Cylon Raiders." Koine Perry finished his report as the computer showed him the results.

"The Hades and the Helios have Jumped Sir." Lt. Tlarnc reported.

"All Vipers back onboard Sir." Major Dies.

"Which Squadron was on CAP." Aeryn asked.

"Platinum, Sir." Major Dies.

"Rotate them to reserve." Aeryn ordered.

"Yes Sir." Lt. Perry acknowledged.

"If we stay here to cover the Colonial Movers as they evacuate the Anchorage. The probe force will catch us before we can leave, and once we have taken them out, that Basestar will Jump in on top of us, maybe with two or three friends. They will have the initiative if we let it play out like that, so we are going out to meet them on our own terms." Aeryn paced thinking then started calling out orders.

"Operations designate the raiders priority target for Black squadron. Silver, Jade and Gold will stay with us as we go for the Basestar. The Frigates are to stay in formation until our Vipers engage, then they are to Jump to their outer assault range and target the Basestar from above and below. Once they start getting return fire they are to retreat out of the Cylons range. Once we have blooded the Basestar and Black squadron has destroyed the probe force, we will begin retreating, the Frigates can jump back to cover our landing Vipers, then land themselves and we jump out." It was a classic Peacekeeper manoeuvre, used to stall stronger Scarran forces, one that Aeryn had reworked to suit the Colonial ships abilities. Her crews had war gamed it many times in the last three months; the young pilots did not have the experience for a long drawn out battle. But in a set piece affair like she was planning Aeryn thought they would do well, they could certainly fly.

-ooo000ooo-

**Pilots Briefing Hall, Battlestar Medusa, Nike System**

Captain Susan "Char" Usen, Commander Air Group for the Battlestar Medusa finished going over the notes the XO had handed her minutes ago. The operation was a feint and retreat with Frigate support and one squadron diverted to neutralize a priority target. They had war gamed this exact scenario nine days ago. Only this time, it was for real they wouldn't be practicing with the Hades, with its' Vipers playing the part of Cylon Raiders; they would be flying against the real thing and dog fighting the new enemy Scimitar class raiders.

"Attention people." Lieutenant Shane "Shark" Alex the commander of Black squadron and her 2IC, shouted out when he saw Susan step up to the podium.

"Okay people where on the clock here, straight after the briefing you're in your birds and Medusa is Jumping into the Fire. As soon as the FTL is complete we will crash launch. Silver, Jade and Gold squadrons will form up around the Medusa. Black squadron will peel off and hunt down the eight raiders that are on stealth approach to the Anchorage. The rest of us will join the Medusa in a strike against the Basestar, once we are engaged the fighter cover the Frigates will move in to take some of the heat off. Then we hold until Black squadron has completed its mission, at that time we withdraw, again with support from the Frigates." Susan looked out over her pilots they all recognized the scenario and most looked confident, too confident Susan thought. Few had been in what was commonly called combat. Some Xarai Pilots that came with the Commander, others that the Fleet rescued with their drifting Vipers as they fled the colonies. But most had only simulator time and a lot of training by the Commander in last three months; added to whatever level they had reached at the academy.

"Questions." Captain Usen asked.

"What are we carrying?" Lieutenant Tru "Hi Ball" Mainz, the Squadron leader of Jade queried.

"Anti-fighter loud out. We will let the commander worry about carving her initials into the Basestar's hull." Captain Usen answered.

"Are the Frigates going to be in formation with us?" Called out Andrew "Strife" Tropes, one of Susan's regular wingmen.

"The Frigate Squadron will be following their own mission orders, they will be under our anti-fighter canopy for the beginning of the fight. After that they will do their own thing." Captain Usen answered.

No more questions were called out.

"Right people scramble." Captain Usen ordered.

The briefing hall had large six exits, with just this sort of mass exodus in mind. 168 pilots making up the 4 squadrons poured out of the room. Outside travel cars took off as each was loaded, speeding down the tracks to the port and starboard launch bays. Silver and Black squadrons Vipers were already prepared and in their launch tubes with Jade and Gold ready to be slotted into place by flight crews as soon as the first vipers launched.

Susan climbed up the short steps, which was hastily pulled away, into the cockpit of her Viper, hitting the canopy release with her elbow as she donned her helmet. As soon as she was set, she went through the power on sequence on her instrument panel, and the fighter rumbled to life. The ground crew evacuated the launch tube airlock and Susan nodded to the launch coordinator in his sealed office. Amber strobes began flashing as the air was sucked out.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.I.C Battlestar Medusa, Nike System**

Major Dies listened to reports coming through on his headset then raised his eyes to meet Aeryn's.

"Commander all Vipers are in pre launch positions, jamming is on full power, we have plotted an exit point between the scout force and the Basestar's suspected location."

"Very well, thank you Major, Lt. Koine you may begin the countdown."

"5"

Aeryn had been a Pilot, a Commando, and Officer of Icarion Company, Pleisar Regiment.

"4"

She had fought in over a dozen campaigns. Everything from fighting her way into a pirate den to a fleet action against a Scarran Dreadnought.

"3"

Led her Patrol group of Prowlers in savage dogfights with Scarran, Scavenger Gunships.

"2"

This should have been just another day at work for her.

"1"

Somehow it wasn't

"Jump!" Commander Aeryn Sun ordered her ship, the Battlestar Medusa into battle.

-ooo000ooo-

**Outer Reaches, Nike System**

The Columbia Class had been the workhorse of the Colonial fleets. Based on the design of the twelve original Battlestars like the Galactica. It combined all the main features, the retractable landing pods; the crocodilian wedge shaped head, the bulging drive section and thick armour covered in cannons, missile batteries and point-defence guns. The Columbia class however were nearly half again the size of their older cousins and mounted three rather than two Mass Driver bow-guns with another smaller version between the drives as chase armament.

With a brilliant flash the Medusa appeared, Cylons reeled as local radio was disrupted by the Battlestar's powerful jamming equipment and learned with shock that their sub-space connection with their Fleet was gone, something they didn't even suspect the Colonials knew about. Racing at full flank speed, the Battlestar came about orientating its' blunt prow on the Cylon Basestar, all the while exploding from the sides of the slowly extending landing pods, the 84 Vipers of Silver and Black squadrons rapidly deployed to their assigned stations. While Silver Squadron formed up first and took position above the Medusa, the Vipers of Black Squadron arced away heading for their targets. As the Gold and Jade squadrons began to launch, a series of smaller flashes of intense white light heralded the arrival of the five Nautilus class Frigates. The small warships easily caught up to the Medusa and fell into formation.

For all its' impressive size, the Medusa was overshadowed by the bulk of the Cylon Basestar. Caught flat footed the star shaped Cylon carrier remained in place a second too long and Medusa's first barrage of three Mass Driver Kinetic shots slammed into it. The first to arrive ripped through one of the top spike like arms and continued on to bury itself into the thicker shoulder section of the arm behind it. The second disappeared into the hanger at the top of the central core. The third sliced along outside the core ripping a gapping wound along the ship's side.

The massive Basestar shuddered, fire exploded out of the ruined hanger bays, throwing burning Raiders into space. Spinning around, trying to turn its' damaged side away from the Battlestar, the Basestar slid to the side avoiding the next main gun shots from the Medusa. More raiders were rapidly launched from its other hangers.

The Battlestar charged after its frantically evading foe, bringing it into range of Medusa's missile batteries. Missiles were ripple fired in salvos down the length of the Battlestar's hull from bow to stern. Twisting away from the Medusa they converged on the Basestar. The Cylons opened up with its own array of missile and rail-gun fire trying to knock down the incoming waves of Colonial fire. The Basestar was still reeling from opening blows of the surprise attack and its' point defences was uncoordinated, of the five hundred missiles fired, 21 lost target lock and went ballistic due to the hastily erected ECM. Another 146 were intercepted either by interceptor missiles or rail-gun rounds, and the rest of Medusa's missiles struck their target.

323 missiles detonated across the hull of the Basestar ripping the weak armour apart and demolishing weapon emplacements. Another two hangers were damaged, not destroyed but putting them out of the immediate fight. The second and third waves were less and less affective even with the brutal damage it had received; the redundancy of the larger Basestar meant that the Medusa was still outgunned. With the Cylon point defences and ECM solidifying, only 30 missiles got through to impact, but the grey ship just seemed to absorb the hits.

With the missile barrage all but ineffective and the Basestar able to keep out of the firing arc of the MKD forward guns, The Cylon ship seemed to steel itself and rail-gun rounds and missiles started striking back at the Battlestar. But too late as the Medusa entered cannon range.

Coming hard about the, Battlestar presented its Broadside to the Cylon Basestar. Racing around its slower enemy, the Medusa caught up with the slowly rotating damaged side already pounded by MKD rounds and missiles. The Battlestar's gun crews aimed at the huge gash running across the side of the Basestar's core. 112 12 inch cannons fired across the distance between the two ships, armour piecing rounds dove deep into the Basestar before exploding, pock marking the hull of the Cylon ship with craters some as large as a Raptor.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.I.C Battlestar Medusa, Outer Reaches, Nike System**

CIC echoed with the continuous BOOM! of Cannons firing with the auto loaders supplying each of the 112 12inch guns a fresh round every 12 seconds, with which the Medusa was hitting the Basestar 560 times a minute; the Cannon shells chewing into the core of the Cylon ship.

Commander Aeryn Sun watched her crew fight their ship, they were doing well. But that was the problem; her inexperienced crew was almost giddy with how the battle was going. The Cylons had hardly got a hit in on the Battlestar and the Medusa was doing horrendous damage almost at will.

"Get an update from Black squadron Specialist Owens." Aeryn ordered Communication's then turned to the Dradis.

"What are their fighter's doing Lt. Tlarnc." The Xarai officer had kept his eyes glued to his screen.

"They're still massing Sir, the count is now 438." Lt. Tlarnc reported.

"They will begin their Attack soon, the Basestar can't take much more of this." Major Dies realised, he had not been a combat officer before the holocaust but 41 years of experience counted.

The deck shuddered; everyone took a step to keep his or her balance Aeryn snagged Lt. Koine as he staggered past holding the Caprican up easily as he regained his balance.

"Damage report!" Hal Dies bellowed the outer ring of CIC where a dozen crewmembers monitored every part of the Medusa bustled as reports poured in. Hal cupped his hand over the earpiece of his headset, listening then relayed what he was hearing to his Commander.

"Direct hit on gun No.38, guns. 37 and 39 are not reporting, damage control teams are enroute, gun 19 reports they're out of the fight with heavy casualties." Hal reported.

"Point defence rail-guns are down in sector P8." Lt. Koine Perry added getting reports on his own headset.

With the software updates from Rovhu and his Pilot, Medusa no longer relied on setting a Perimeter for point defence, basically throwing everything they had into space in the hopes of hitting incoming ordinance. Now Dradis was directly tied into the automated rail-guns and rather than firing in preset patterns worked out in advance, the quick firing cheap weapons locked on and targeted enemy fire until it was destroyed.

It wasn't perfect however and another battle raged bellow the surface, as ECM crews tried to spoof the incoming missiles with confusing signals and false images while the Cylons refined their target data.

"The raiders are moving in!" Lt. Tlarnc reported

"Black squadron reports mission accomplished." Specialist Owens reported.

"Task one of the Frigates with covering Sector P8, get "Char" to give it Viper support." Aeryn ordered. With a whole sector of point defence down the raiders would have too big a target to ignore.

"Switch missile targeting to anti-fighter." Aeryn paced restlessly itching to get out there and take them on fighter to fighter. With a deep breath she stilled herself and concentrated on trying to project an aura of calm. Looking down at the small computer generated data blocks that represented the combatants on the Dradis display she suddenly missed the view screen on Moya. And she had thought Crichton was just being Crichton insisting on it being one of the needed upgrades.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.A.G. Medusa Outer Reaches, Nike System**

Captain Usen acknowledged the orders from Medusa control, and delegated a flight from Silver squadron to cover the Frigate moving down the Battlestar's side where its weapons could cover the ruined crater that had been gun emplacement 38. Then she switched to all stations to address her whole Viper force.

"Here they come! The Cylons are making their move. Silver and Gold squadrons we are going out to meet them, Jade stick close to the Medusa, lets go get them!" Char pointed her Viper towards the charging raiders and accelerated towards them with her nimble fighters throttle wide open.

The 78 Vipers of the two Squadrons raced towards the 442 Raiders the Cylons had been able to launch. As the two groups closed with one another, the Medusa's Vipers were over taken by their mother ship's missile barrage. 500 hundred missiles streaked into the raider formation.

Rail-gun rounds poured into space as the Cylons blasted away at the wall of destruction heading for them, ECM flooded the electronic environment and decoy beyond counting were deployed. The raiders formation broke as they twisted and turned trying to evade the missile barrage. 320 missiles lost their targets but 76 were able to re-acquire a target in the confused mess of evading Raiders, while 122 turned away and destroyed decoys. 49 were shot out of space. 19 wasted themselves on double strikes. For the opening anti-Fighter barrage, 56 Raiders were wiped out. The second wave of Medusa's missiles arrived this time joined by 156 launched from the Vipers.

When the Vipers reached the raiders the Cylons formations were in tatters and their numbers cut down to 243, still out numbering Medusa's defenders by more than two to one.

Char plunged straight into the furball scoring a kill right away as a Raider turned into her sites. Jinking and turning her Viper she pulled up behind another Scimitar and fought to line up a shot at the evading Cylon.

"I've got one!"

"Me too."

"Ha! splash another one."

"Take that you Frakkers!"

The exited chatter filled her COM's.

"Quiet, do your jobs, watch your sixes and cover your wingmen." "Char" angled in from above and sent a burst of AC rounds into one of her targets wings the Raider flipped into roll, trying to slip out from under her sites, seemed to recover for a second, before coming apart in a splash of fire.

Looking around, she tried to get some idea of the battle, space was filled with explosions and weaving fighters. The Dradis screen struggled tring to keep up with its target rich environment. Constantly updating as it grappled with thousands of contacts. Fighters, missiles, Colonial auto cannon munitions , Cylon rail-gun rounds and debris from hundreds of wrecked ships.

A flicker in the corner of her eye and "Char" wrenched her joystick back spinning her Viper away from fire coming at her from behind. Working the pedals Susan flipped her Viper end to end to confront the pair of Raiders targeting her.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.I.C Battlestar Medusa, Outer Reaches, Nike System**

The Medusa shook again as she took another hit, this one smashing down on the Battlestar's armoured head not penetrating her thick armour but destroying more of her missile batteries.

Aeryn ignored the calls and orders around her as she watched the Dradis display. The main dogfight between Vipers and Raiders had drifted away from the two capital ships as the fighters manoeuvred against one another. Black squadron was closing with their position. A smaller battle was going on right outside Medusa's hull as Jade squadron and the single Frigate engaged those Cylons that had broken through to reach the Battlestar. The other Frigates had pulled back after jumping into position and firing at the Basestar for over a minute peppering its uncovered upper and lower quadrants with their own missiles and the large ship to ship rail-guns which were there main weapons. The Basestar had taken horrific damage, two of the blade like arms had been blown off while fires raged all over the mile long ship and the Colonials had destroyed over half of its' guns and wrecked all of its hangers, the battle reached its 17th minute.

"Radiological Alarm, We are detecting a radiation source coming from in system." Aeryn head snapped up, that was the signal. The Anchorage was gone. The Fleet had abandoned the Nike system.

"Orders to all Vipers, they are to clear any remaining missiles and head back to the barn, signal the Frigates to move in to cover." Even she had started to hope they could achieve a clean victory. But it wasn't going to happen.

With the amount of damage they were doing to the Cylon Basestar it had looked like they could finish it off. Then Medusa could combine forces with her Vipers and together make short work of the 100 or so raiders left. But the Basestar wasn't dying, it was crippled and Aeryn doubted the Cylons would even try to salvage the ruined ship, but it was still fighting. Medusa weapons just couldn't dig deep enough to get to its vitals. The battle was taking too long. Even with the jamming, stopping the Cylons calling for help there were too many FTL capable Raiders for Aeryn to believe help wouldn't' arrive soon.

Aeryn watched as the number of Raiders dropped by another 20 as the Vipers used the last of their missiles and Black squadron swept in for a coordinated strike, then the whole mass of Vipers turned and raced for the Medusa. As the Vipers presented their tale pipes to the Cylons, the confirmed count of Colonial fighters in that sector dropped from 98 to 95.

-ooo000ooo-

**C.A.G. Medusa Outer Reaches, Nike System**

"Char's" Mk VII slipped under the bulk of the Nautilus the returning Vipers, aiming at the gapping bay of the landing pod. She slammed on the manoeuvring thrusters and fishtailed her Viper trying to bleed off momentum, as she came in fast for a Combat Landing. All around her other Vipers were dropping to the deck in a mad scramble to get down safe, there were minor collisions amongst the fighters as the Frigates started to slowly back into the Hanger still firing their forward guns, as the pods started to retract.

-ooo000ooo-

**Outer Reaches, Nike System  
**

The Battlestar turned away from its foe, as its flight pods finished sliding up tight to the main body. Still trading shots with the crippled Basestar and swatting the Raiders that buzzed around it like irritating flies the Medusa accelerated then with a burst of brilliant white light, it Jumped.

The Battlestar Medusa Full Crew compliment

Before Battle 4230

After Battle 4126

Combat Positions

Viper Squadrons

Silver Squadron 6. Flights of 7. Vipers 42 A.B. 38

Black Squadron 6. Flights of 7. Vipers 42 A.B. 41

Jade Squadron 6. Flights of 7. Vipers 42 A.B. 35

Gold Squadron 6. Flights of 7. Vipers 42 A.B. 31

Platinum Squadron 6. Flights of 7. Vipers 42 A.B. 42

Raptor Squadrons

Eyes Squadron 2 Flights of 5. Raptors 10 A.B. 10

Eagle Squadron 2 Flights of 5. Raptors 10 A.B. 10

(Seconded from the Hades)

Blue Hound Squadron 2 Flights of 5. Raptors 10 A.B. 10

Gun Crews

12Inch Port Broadside, 112. Bunker Crews of 4. Gunners 448 A.B. 448

12Inch Starboard Broadside, 112. Bunker Crews of 4. Gunners 448 A.B. 409

22inch Turrets, 8. Bunker Crews of 9. Gunners 72. A.B. 72

Damage Control Teams

32 Teams of 13. crewmen 416 A.B. 414

A/N well the first real Battle scene. Didn't come out quite like I wanted. Hope you like it.

A/N

Well another chap completed (Thanks again to Tweeky for the excellent beta work) could I just make a request to reviewers? If you spot a problem could you zero in on it. A generic 'there are problems' statement doesn't help us find what needs fixing. Both my beta reader and I have gone over these chapters dozens of times looking for things to improve and fix. Which means we miss things that new or fresh eyes might spot. Those errors that have been pointed out in enough detail so I can find what has caught a reviewer's eye have been corrected.

This in no way should be counted as discouragement to critical reviewers! Just that if you see a problem please give me enough information to identify and correct it. Its really frustrating being told there's something wrong and not being able to find it.


End file.
